The United States and Brazil are two of the main producers of chicken and turkey meat in the world. In the slaughterhouses of these countries, unlike in Europe, the cutting and deboning processes in the production lines are very manual, mainly because the end use of the meat is different from that in Europe. The meat in these countries is mainly consumed after being processed. in other words, minced, in the form of hamburgers, meatballs, etc. Thus, it is very important to be able to obtain as much meat as possible from each fowl. For this reason, cutting and deboning tasks are carried out manually. In the US there are currently more than 800 lines with these characteristics, and more than 500 in Brazil.
These cutting and deboning lines are structured in production chains in which the workers cut and debone the fowl around support lines with a conical tip on which they are loaded. The loading of the fowl on the support is one of the most monotonous steps, which provides little value; neither does it produce any advantage when it comes to obtaining as much meat as possible from each piece.
On the other hand, there are many problems related to the health of the workers associated with continuous repetitive movements such as those required for threading the fowl on the support. Performing the same movement all day with a sustained rhythm can create problems in the joints and the muscles, as well as psychological problems. The poultry industry is interested in reducing said manual labor for many reasons, including worker safety.
Currently, research is being performed on actuators capable of handling fowl. Robotic systems are known in the current state of the art with fowl positioning elements, with computer vision systems that help it to know the orientation thereof and place them in processing chains, such as the one disclosed in patent document U.S. Pat. No. 8,328,605, but the implementation of said system in a plant for manually processing the whole fowl on supports is not effective.
Therefore, there is still a need for a system that enables the loading operator in the support lines to be substituted, capable of moving a set of fowl initially provided in an unknown position to a position suitable for the manual processing thereof in said lines, which is compact, hygienic, robust and reliable in use, and economical to manufacture and maintain.